Shooting With Broken Arrows
by Beautiful-Crying-Angel
Summary: Matt holds everyone together, when inside he's falling apart. He stays calm and quiet, when he wants to scream. He fights, when he has nothing left to give. He doesn't cry, when the pain hurts like hell. He picks up the pieces, when he's broken beyond repair. He does what he has to do. [characters called by their dub names]
1. Holding Together

_Welcome to my first Digimon fic! This story focuses on my favorite Digi character - Matt, and his relationship with T.K. Each chapter will represent a pivotal moment in Matt's life and his development. The poor boy has so much angst and not enough love! How far this story will go depends mostly on interest. I hope you enjoy reading. Don't forget to leave a review. =)  
_

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 **Shooting with Broken Arrows**

 **One: Holding Together**

Their mom and dad were fighting again. They fought almost every night now. They began quietly, arguing in angry whispers. Matt tiptoed out of bed and cracked open the door, peeking out. Mom was standing at the sink washing the supper dishes. He couldn't see her face, but her back was rigid and tense. Dad was sitting at the kitchen table, a cup of tea in front of him. His fingers gripped the handle tightly, but he did not raise the porcelain to his lips. They threw words back and forth like stones, each one striking Matt and embedding itself in his skin. Ripping open invisible wounds. He bled transparent. He didn't know what they were fighting about – these days it seemed they never fought about anything specific at all. They had lost the ability to communicate with each other without yelling.

Their voices were rising. Mom had turned to look at Dad, wringing the dish towel in her hands as if she was trying to strangle it. His father remained sitting, but Matt thought he could see him shaking. He hated when his parents spoke to each other this way – their voices dripping venom, dropping on him like bombs, explosions he heard even in his dreams. He loved them both so much; he hated seeing the ones he loved hurt and upset, especially when they were hurting each other. How could he protect his loved ones from each other? He thought his mom and dad were in love. He remembered they used to profess their love all the time, kiss in the hallway and before his father left for work. His dad used to bring his mother flowers. What had happened?

 _Maybe it's my fault._ Maybe he had done something wrong. Maybe he was the problem. During their fight last Wednesday – a particularly vicious one, even by their standards – he had heard his name mentioned and repeated. The name they had given him spoken angrily, hurled at each other amidst a barrage of insults. _His_ name shouted in contempt like a dirty word. A familiar missile, calculated to cause the most damage.

His parents were at war. Not with fists or guns, but with words. A war in which his mother and father sought to tear each other down, but a war in which, Matt was coming to realize, he and his brother would be the biggest casualties.

"I can't do this anymore! I can't!" His mother screamed, throwing down her towel.

A chair scraped against the floor. His father stood and, with equal volume, thundered, " _You_ can't do this? I work hard to support you and the boys! What do you-"

Matt shut the door, slightly muffling but unable to completely silence the sound. He rested his forehead against the wood. He sniffled, trying to hold in his tears. He wanted to scream, wanted to tell his parents to stop, to shut up. Didn't they see what they were doing to their family? To him? His mother said she couldn't do "this" anymore. What was "this"? Be a mother, be _his_ mother? If she gave him a chance, he would do better. He'd try harder. He'd do his chores and look after his brother. He'd get groceries and make his own lunch for school. He'd do anything to make "this" more bearable for her.

"Matt?" The voice behind him was soft and sad, full of childhood innocence. Matt wiped his eyes and swallowed the remainder of his tears. His eyes adjusted to the dark, the familiar room with its desk and bookshelves, toys and clothes littering the floor. He could easily spot his little brother's silhouette, half-illuminated by the constant glow of Tokyo, sitting up in bed.

"T.K, why aren't you sleeping?"

"Are Mommy and Daddy fighting again?" Matt's bare feet were soundless as he padded across the floor. T.K stared down at him expectantly from his top bunk. A teddy bear clenched tightly under his arm. Instead of answering, Matt climbed into his brother's bed. Together, they huddled under the sheets, pulling the blankets up over their heads like a tent. Matt grabbed the flashlight and book he had hidden between the mattress and the wall for such occasions as these. T.K cuddled close to him. His body warmth, pressed against his brother, made Matt feel too warm, but he didn't object or move away.

Matt opened the book to the place he had marked, angling the pages to catch the light. He began to read. His voice was steady, even as he stumbled over big words, gentle and confident, drowning out his parents' hatred. T.K listened to the rhythm of his brother's voice, the reassuring _thump, thump, thump_ of his heart-beat. He tried to make his heart sound just the same - sound like love.

Matt finished the chapter and began another. He tried to fill T.K's head with fantastic stories of adventures and fairy-realms, glorious and courageous heroes and villains who never won. He wanted him to forget. Forget real life, the battle on the other side of their door. A battle without victors, without a good guy or bad guy. Just two people too tired to try anymore. This had become their nightly ritual of late: when the shouting started, Matt climbed into T.K's bed and they hid, just the two of them, inside soft folds of fabric and the cadence of Matt's voice. Sometimes they listened to the radio or made up stories from their heads: Matt's always featured tragic heroes and epic heroism; T.K's were always about incredible monsters of fur, scale, and steel. Once T.K had fallen asleep, Matt would double-check that he was tucked in safely, and he would finally allow himself to drift off. Most nights he didn't bother getting into his own bed.

Outside their room, a door slammed. Mom had either gone to bed alone, forcing Dad to sleep on the couch, or Dad had left to take a walk. Matt worried that one day his father would go for a walk and never come back. T.K interrupted the story mid-sentence to ask, "Matt, are we going to be okay?"

"Of course we are, T.K. Why wouldn't we be?"

The little boy's wide eyes brimmed with tears. "Mommy and Daddy are always yelling at each other. Kieda, from next door, she told me her mom and dad used to yell at each other, and then her daddy left. She never sees him. She said her family broked apart. I don't want our family to be broke." T.K sobbed. Matt rushed to soothe him before the wailing began. T.K buried his head in his big brother's t-shirt, his little fist bunching up the material, keeping Matt by his side. "I want us to always be together: Mommy, Daddy, you, and me. I don't want us to go away."

"Shh, T.K. That's not going to happen to us. We're going to be okay."

T.K looked up at him, his eyes pleading. Ready to believe anything his brother said. "Do you promise? Promise you won't ever leave me?"

Matt embraced T.K. Nothing could ever convince him to leave his brother behind. "I promise. I'm not going anywhere."

"Never ever?"

"Never ever," Matt agreed solemnly. A childish promise whispered in the dark. A promise to T.K, and an oath to himself. Matt would do whatever necessary to keep his family together. An idealistic belief that simply wishing a thing could make it true.


	2. Breaking Apart

**Two: Breaking Apart**

Their parents filed for divorce.

For weeks, Matt had been trying his best to make life in their household better. He cleaned his room and washed the dishes; he took out the trash without being asked, finished all his homework promptly, got ready for school all by himself and arrived for class early; he played quietly with TK, taking him to the park and the candy store near their apartment, so his parents could have alone time. He tiptoed around the house, fearful that the smallest noise would shatter what tranquillity remained.

He tried his best to be a good boy and not complain, to maintain family harmony and keep his family together – but his best wasn't good enough. He couldn't mend what refused to be fixed. He couldn't maintain harmony between two people determined to hate each other. When his parents announced their decision to divorce, it wasn't Matt's fault – it was his parents' – but he didn't see it that way. Something broke deep inside him, and he felt he had failed.

He had observed the warning signs. He should have known this was coming. His parents had stopped fighting. Their nightly screaming matches had morphed into avoidance and silent existence. His father stayed later at the office, and when he was home, Mr. and Mrs. Ishida moved around each other as if they were ghosts inhabiting separate planes. TK – poor, innocent, little TK – thought this was a good sign. He was glad the yelling had ceased; he hated yelling. Matt was not as hopeful. Beneath the false facade of peace existed a brokenness, a pain, an indifference so dark and unloving it frightened him more than the shouting.

They announced their decision to the boys separately. They told Matt first, believing his age and maturity would help him understand. They didn't realize the pressure Matt had been under for weeks, believing it was his responsibility to keep the family together. Nor did they recognize this new-found maturity and wisdom in Matt was the product of necessity, of their selfishness. He wasn't strong; he wasn't a grown up. He was a little boy who wanted his Mommy and Daddy to stop fighting. Who wanted, more than anything, for them to stay together and love each other again. For them to be a family.

They wanted his help telling TK. "He listens to you. He looks up to you," his father explained by way of justification. "You can help him understand." _Help him understand what? That I failed him?_ Matt wasn't sure he understood himself, but his parents watched him expectantly. He wanted to yell at them, tell them they were making a mistake, but they needed him to be the good son, the obedient son. He would be whatever they wanted him to be, especially if it would help TK.

They sat TK on the couch. Mommy on one side, Matt on the other. Daddy paced the space in front of them. Mommy used her special soothing voice and tried to break the news to him gently. Daddy interjected here and there, with empty reasons and hollow statements like "You'll understand when you're older." If growing up meant leaving behind the people you loved, TK wanted to stay a child forever; he never wanted to understand.

TK's eyes filled with tears, and he began to cry. He wrapped his arms around his mother, hiding himself in her lap. He begged her to say it wasn't true. She cuddled him close and whispered meaningless reassurances. Sometimes mommies and daddies grew apart, she explained, and they couldn't be together any more. There were many reasons why this happened. No one expects to fall out of love with the person they used to care for deeply.

The idea that a person could suddenly stop loving another person terrified TK. "Don't you love me?"

"Oh, baby, of course I love you. Daddy and I breaking up doesn't mean we'll ever stop loving you or Matt. You are our children." TK would not be consoled. What if they _did_ stop loving him one day? What if becoming an adult meant you were less capable of love? What if one day Mommy and Daddy stopped loving him? Even worse: what if someday Matt grew up and didn't love him anymore? "Just because Daddy and I split up, doesn't mean you and Matt will."

Their father stopped pacing and stared at his wife. "We've talked about this. You can't have both boys."

Mrs. Ishida glared at her soon-to-be ex-husband. "We haven't decided anything."

"You do _not_ get both boys. They are _my_ sons as much as they are yours, and I will not-"

"Matt, TK, go to your room." Their mother's eyes flashed. Matt knew she wasn't mad at them, but there was a storm brewing within her, and Matt wanted to be as far away as possible before it erupted. Matt scooped TK out of his mother's arms and carried him to their room. He shut the door just as her rage exploded.

"A boy needs to be with his mother!"

"And just how are you going to provide for one of them, let alone both of them!?"

"I'll think of something! You're one to talk! You're never home! The boys don't have a father – they have a monthly pay cheque!" And so it started – their worst fight ever. The fight that would tear Matt's world apart and forever alter the course of his life.

His mother refused to be parted with TK, her baby. If Mr. Ishida wanted a son, he could take Matt. Matt was independent and reliable. He could care for himself while his father was working. They would not share custody. She did not want to see her ex-husband's face. Matt was free to come and go as he pleased, but she would not separate from TK. Not even on weekends.

They argued further, but Matt tuned them out. Were they really going to separate him and TK? Were they allowed to do that? Why hadn't his mother fought harder for him? Didn't she love him too? Matt hugged his knees against his chest, leaned his head against the wall, and closed his eyes. He wanted to wake up and discover this was all just a bad dream.

"Matt?" He opened his eyes. TK knelt in front of him, clutching a bright red fire-engine in one hand. His eyes were filled with tears again. "Are we really not going to live together anymore?" TK couldn't imagine sleeping in a room by himself.

Matt wanted to lie, wanted to promise TK that no one could ever separate them. He wanted to be able to tell his brother everything was going to be fine, but he didn't believe it anymore. Nothing was going to be alright. He and his brother would live in different houses, go to different schools. They might never see each other. He grabbed TK in his arms and crushed the smaller boy against him. He didn't want to cry in front of TK, but Matt couldn't stop the tears that slipped down his cheeks. His entire world was crumbling out from under his feet.

TK clutched at Matt and sobbed. If the situation was bad enough to make Matt cry, then it must be really, really bad. Not only was he losing his daddy, he was losing his big brother too. They held each other and cried until there were no tears left. TK continued to dry-sniffle, as Matt's eyes hardened, his sadness swiftly replaced by anger and a need for action. "Let's run away!" he suggested. "Then we could be together!" That would show his parents: they couldn't keep him and his brother apart.

TK gazed up at his brother. He broke from Matt's grasp, realizing he was serious. "We can't."

"Why not?" Didn't TK want to be with him as much as he wanted to be with TK?

"'Cause. We gotta stay and look after Mom and Dad." Their family was dividing, splitting into two groups. If TK left now, who would be there to take care of Mommy? He wanted to be with his brother, but he couldn't abandon his mother. It was his duty to look after her, once Daddy and Matt left.

No one understood duty better than Matt. The older boy nodded, shaking off the crazy idea. TK was right. He couldn't think about himself and what he wanted. He needed to think about his parents. His father would need help; he'd never be able to run a household on his own. And his mother needed her youngest son with her. He was being selfish. Yet, looking at his little brother, the knowledge that they were soon to be separated weighing down on him, Matt wondered if it would be okay to be selfish some of the time, and if there would ever come a time when someone else would put Matt first, instead of the other way around. "You're right, TK."

"But just cause we're not together, we'll still be brothers, won't we Matt?"

"Of course we will. They can make us live in different houses, but they can't make us stop being brothers. You and me will never change." There would never come a day when Matt loved anyone more than he loved TK.

"Ya promise?"

"I promise." Matt had failed to uphold his last promise, but he intended to keep this one. "Let's get ready for dinner." From that moment, over the next week, Matt spent every second he could with TK. He knew he didn't have much time left. He counted down the hours until their big separation, when he and Dad would move to one apartment, Mom and TK to another. He couldn't help feeling that he was approaching the end of an important time in his life – and that it was ending much, much sooner than it was supposed to.


	3. Moving Away

**Three: Moving Away**

They said goodbye on the sidewalk.

Matt's father and mother had found smaller apartments several blocks apart in different neighbourhoods, and the family had spent the last week dividing household items between them. Matt hated packing. He helped TK take his clothes out of the closet and put them into suitcases; they loaded toys, books, photo frames, and blankets into boxes. Matt offered TK any of his toys the younger brother wished to keep. TK shook his head and declined; he didn't want any of Matt's toys unless his brother could be there to play with them too. Matt understood the sentiment, feeling a new-found cold indifference to his old playthings, but he pressed his old teddy bear onto TK. It was a tattered, faded pale yellow with bright plaid patches holding in the stuffing. It may not have been the most attractive bear, but it was dearly loved. He'd had it since he was a baby. The bear had seen him through nightmares and childhood illnesses, sad times and fun games, all the small joys and fears he had known in his young life. It was his most prized possession. "You keep him," Matt ordered, shoving the teddy into TK's arms.

"You want me to take Lieutenant Roscoe?" the little boy asked. He knew how special this particular toy was to Matt. It was the only one he really cared about.

"Yes. If I can't be there with you, at least he can keep you safe." Roscoe had brought him through difficult times. If Matt couldn't be there to watch over TK, at least the teddy bear could. When nightmares of fighting monsters woke TK in the dead of night, Lieutenant Roscoe's soft stuffing could scare the bad dreams off, ushering in the safety of the light of day.

TK cuddled the bear to his face. He threw himself into Matt's arms, wrapping his arms around the older boy's neck. He started to cry. Again. He cried a lot, he knew he did, but he couldn't help himself. Lately he had been crying almost unceasingly; sometimes he wasn't even sure why. He just knew he was unbelievably sad, and he couldn't imagine the sadness leaving him anytime soon.

Matt held TK while he cried. When he finished, they returned to packing. Matt was struck with sadness, as he divided the items in their room between two different types of boxes: whose labelled with his name and those labelled with TK's. All the little things that made up their lives, their life together. TK's favourite blue blanket; the bird feather, tucked in an adventure book, they had found while playing in the park; Matt's soccer ball; the framed photo from TK's birthday party (Matt selfishly tucked this last item in among his bed sheets). Trivial, insignificant items Matt hadn't realized he would miss until they were no longer there.

Their goodbye was quick, like ripping off a band-aid. The keys to their Highton View Terrace apartment were returned to the landlord. Matt stood in the empty loft one final time. The blank walls and the bare, vacant space – how small the apartment seemed without their furniture, how impersonal. Another family would soon live here, he knew. This was no longer his home. Inside Matt felt a hollow void opening within him as he examined the emptiness surrounding him.

This was it: the end of Ishida family unit. The end of their time at Highton View. Onto different, maybe bigger, but never better things. New rooms, new walls, new floors, new furniture, old memories. Same old emptiness; absences where loved ones should be.

How can you say goodbye to family?

TK was wearing a lime green jumper; his hair was uncombed and falling into his eyes. Their mother had been busy cleaning all day, and she still wore her viridescent apron over her clothes. Matt thought she looked beautiful, even though she was harried and sad. Dad had a satchel bag, full of documents from work, hanging over his left shoulder. Though the weather was warm and sunny, he wore a blue jacket he had found in the hall closet and didn't want to leave behind. Matt was also wearing blue, and he thought it was funny – in a humourless, detached way – that the two brothers should match the parent with whom they were to live. Yet their colours were superficial, removable, interchangeable – an unzipped jacket and an untied apron – while Matt and TK were stuck. The colours existed within them, beneath their skin and inside their souls. Blue and green, green and blue. Pleasant meadows under endless skies. Life-giving droplets of rain on a single blade of grass. Companions in the rainbow, mixing and blurring, indistinguishable and inseparable. Green needed blue to exist.

His mother gave Matt a quick hug, and a curt nod to her ex-husband. Matt wanted his mother to hold him close to her and never let him go. He thought he saw tears in her eyes, but it could have been a trick of the sun and the steel city, gleaming in her irises. TK hugged his father's legs, professing hsi love for his daddy. Daddy patted his head and told TK he would see him later. The boy wondered when "later" would be.

TK hugged Matt. He sniffled, trying to keep his sobs inside. He looked up at his brother's face for reassurance. TK hated goodbyes. Matt's eyes were moist but strangely blank. A numbness has begun to settle in, as he pushed his feelings deeper inside. He couldn't let himself feel, or else he'd dissolve into a mess right here on the sidewalk. Melt into a puddle of tears indifferent adults would hurriedly walk through without a second glance. Everyone stepped all over him anyways.

Matt had to be strong for TK. He started to return TK's hug, whispering promises to his little brother, urging him to be strong, but their mother was already grabbing TK's hand and pulling him away. Their father grabbed Matt's hand with equal vigor, anxious to be free of his ex-wife, who was racing away. Her heels clicking on the pavement. TK struggled to match her strides. His father's footsteps were heavy and determined, as if he was venting his frustration on the sidewalk. The distance widened between them.

Matt looked back. TK glanced back over his shoulder. Their eyes met. Matt wanted to reach out his hand. He wanted to break away from his father, snatch his brother, and run away. He wanted more time to say goodbye, until words became meaningless and they forgot why they were leaving in the first place. He wanted to stand on the sidewalk until time and anger faded away, and all that was left were four hearts beating. He wanted to call out.

But he didn't.

He watched as his mother and TK became smaller, fell farther away from him, until finally they disappeared into the mid-afternoon crowd and he lost sight of them altogether.


End file.
